Headlines of note for March 2013 (updates throughout)...

A theme clustering early this month: leadership shake-ups around the world...

Land Destroyer: US Plots Conquest of Venezuela in Wake of Chavez' Death

Daily Mail: 'Chavez was killed by historical enemies of our homeland' - Extraordinary claim by Venezuela's vice-president as he kicks out two U.S. diplomats

Mad Cow Morning News: Who Killed Hugo Chavez?


In Kenya, Kenyatta wins by narrow margin over Obama favorite Odinga...

Globe and Mail: In a close Kenyan race, danger pulls ahead

Wayne Madsen Report: Obama helps cousin in Kenya with campaign cash and pressure on opponent

African intelligence sources have reported to WMR that President Barack Obama has personally intervened in the Kenyan presidential election to ensure a victory for trailing candidate of the George Soros-backed Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), Raila Odinga, against his International Criminal Court (ICC)-indicted opponent, Uhuru Kenyatta. Odinga is the son of Obama's father's friend and fellow Luo tribesman Oginga Odinga, a bitter political rival of Uhuru's father, Kenya's founding president, Jomo Kenyatta...

Herein lies a major problem for Obama. If it can be proven that the President of the United States ordered campaign cash sent from the United States to the campaign of a relative, albeit a distant cousin, the president may be in violation of several U.S. laws, including the Foreign Corrrupt Practices Act and laws against international money laundering.

Expect violence...

WND: OBAMA PUSHING KENYAN 'PEACE' PROJECTS


On that other shake-up...

Daily Bell: Fulfilling Prophecy, Church Considers Peter the Roman as Next Pope

Another prophecy foiled, on 3/13/13, at around 3:13 PM Buenos Aires time, when white smoke appeared at the Vatican, sent by Chavez from heaven...?

Inquisitr: Hugo Chavez Told Jesus To Pick Pope Francis I

Perhaps not...

World Tribune: God not a Marxist - Leftist prayers for a Red Pope went unanswered

Instead, as the first Jesuit...

BeforeItsNews: Pope Francis 1 - The Black Pope

This story could carry some sort of "end times" importance...

AsiaNews.it: For the first time since the Great Schism, ecumenical patriarch to attend pope's inaugural Mass

It comes rather less dramatically, as the Chinese communist party lacks the flair for spectacle of the Vatican or of its neighbor the DPRK; nevertheless, another billion-plus subjects get a new leader...

China Digital Times: Xi Jinping Named China’s President

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On the psychology of drones, from one who experienced it first hand...

CBS: Drone warfare - Jere Van Dyk describes what it is like to find yourself underneath a UAV

Day after day after day when that drone is over head, you don't know from one second to the next if it's going to come down and blow you away and blow everyone around you away, and there is nothing you can do about it. It eats away at you. I still think about it. It tears something inside your soul, that you are totally helpless, that a man or a woman looking at a screen far away like God looking down upon you, and there is nothing you can do...

The Gorgon stare, over the surface, under the surface...

Mother Nature Network: Massive jellyfish robot could monitor the seas


Mixed messages...

Washington's Blog: Attorney General Holder - Prez Can Assassinate Americans On U.S. Soil

FOXNews: Sen. Paul Declares Victory After Holder Gives Assurance on Drones

Oh really?

NYTimes (Ryan Goodman op-ed): The Drone Question Obama Hasn’t Answered

And a hollow victory if the end result is this...

Reuters: Senate confirms Brennan as new CIA director


There is some significance to the timing of this...

Dawn: CIA seizes bin Laden son-in-law after Turkey deportation

Was there a rush to do this before Brennan took the helm in Langley?


Yahoo!News: Brennan takes oath on draft Constitution—without Bill of Rights

Well, he made it - his life-long ambition has been satisfied. Just perhaps, however, he has discovered that the object of his ambition comes with chains..

Consortiumnews: John Brennan’s Heavy Baggage

John Brennan brings heavy baggage to his new job as CIA Director – legal as well as moral – arguably making it risky for him to travel to more than 150 countries that are party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Meanwhile, Obama hunkers down in the secrecy bunker, defying members of his own party...

HuffPo: Obama Rebuffs Democrats On Drone Kill Memos, Asserts Executive Secrecy Prerogative

Others on the Brennan watch...


RT: Hackers publish CIA Director Brennan's financial records

Of course he shops at Banana Republic


WhoWhatWhy: John Brennan In Grad School - Destroying Democracy Helps Save It

Incidentally, Brennan's former company, The Analysis Corporation, is now known as Sotera Defense Solutions... At least these guys have a sense of humor: the very company that came to Barry Sotoro's defense with a solution of scrubbing his passport record of Indonesian citizenship, and with the appropriate akronym, SDS, a nod to Barry's pals, former SDS'ers Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers...

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Other international developments...

StopNATO: Cyprus - NATO To Absorb Last Remaining European State

Among the benefits of joining the club...

ZeroHedge: Europe Does It Again - Cyprus Depositor Haircut "Bailout" Turns Into Saver "Panic", Frozen Assets, Bank Runs, Broken ATMs

That these events are not unrelated is suggested by the following...

AFP: Russian deposits of $20 billion face Cyprus tax

DailyMail: Will Russia try to seize a foothold in the Med? Energy giant offers to restructure banks in exchange for gas exploration rights

No deal...

FT: Russians prepare to quit Cyprus

They have other plans...

Bloomberg: BRICS Nations Plan New Bank to Bypass World Bank, IMF

We should hope this is a better model of financial rescue for the Third World as opposed to the "economic hit man" model that has prevailed from the West. Perhaps they can lend a hand to Detroit as well...

Black Agenda Report: From Detroit to Cyprus, Banksters in Search of Prey


The NATO gang is getting increasingly desperate in its efforts to topple Assad...

AP: Commander - Contingency plans under way for Syria

Telegraph: Syria chemical weapons - finger pointed at jihadists

PressTV (Webster Tarpley): Skull and Bones blueblood John Kerry seeks destruction of Syria

LaRouchePAC: Gulf Sheikhs Bring Wahhabite Terrorists to Syria from Chechnya and Elsewhere

...Jabhat al-Nusra members have posted statements vowing to take on Shi'ite Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki after they drive out al-Assad, and proclaiming that they will march on Baghdad after seizing Damascus...

Iraq, ten years later, the "war is over" and yet same old same old...

Antiwar: Nearly 100 Killed in Iraq Anniversary Blasts

Inter Press Service: Iraq Once More on the Brink of War

SOTT: Ten years on, Iraq lies in ruins as new evidence confirms U.S. government used Death Squads to manufacture 'Civil War'

Stoked again as in Syria by the Al Qaeda or otherwise "Islamist militant" brigades, who so often turn up wherever there is a contest between the NATO powers and the Sino-Russian sphere. For instance, in a rather more obscure and until recently moribund contest between Malaysia and the Phillipines, comes one with a name like a character out of Sinbad...

BoilingFrogsPost: The Mysterious Case of the Sulu Sultan

Other cases of U.S. backing Al Qaeda and associated forces are brought to light in the following, leading to the logical if absurd sub-heading...

Infowars: Obama Now Global Head of Al-Qaeda
 
Will President order drone strike on White House?

No, but in order to head off the argument and divert attention away from himself...

ABC: US Army Vet Fought With Al Qaeda in Syria - Feds

According to his old man, however, he was working with the CIA.



Part 6 of the Edmonds/Corbett Operation Gladio series...

Corbett Report: Sibel Edmonds Explains Who’s At The Top of the Pyramid

This series of interviews, thus far clocking in at close to 8 hours, is developing into what could be presented as a graduate level course in geo-politics, espionage, the "deep state" and terrorism. For a summary of the contents of Parts 1 and 2 with further analysis pertaining to the Valerie Plame affair and to Ptech...

American Judas: Synopsizing Sibel Edmonds - The Evolution of Operation Gladio Part One, Part Two

With the contents of the above series in mind, consider the case of Anwar Al Awlaki...

Guardian: The NYT and Obama officials collaborate to prosecute Awlaki after he's executed

Glenn Greenwald's piece is something of a "limited hang-out" since, while noting that White House sources seek to justify Awlaki's death penalty by way of his unproven association with the "underwear bomber" Abdulmutallab, he fails to mention the very questionable circumstances surrounding that case (i.e. the official who insured that Abdulmutallab boarded the flight) and that of Awlaki himself (in spite of his connections to several of the 9/11 hijackers, he in 2002 had been allowed entry into the U.S. after being briefly detained by the FBI for an arrest warrant, and he enjoyed the privilege of having dinner at the Pentagon as a "moderate muslim"). All of these circumstances would put Awlaki into the orbit of what Edmonds charts out as Gladio Plan B, and would suggest the true motive for his assassination as based on the necessity of eliminating a witness who might have potentially demolished the entire house of cards in the 9/11 cover-up, were he to get his due process.


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Fukushima, two years on, a new crisis...

ENENews: Temperatures rise in Fukushima fuel pools after nearly 20 hours without power — Crews “scrambling” to fix problems — Tepco placing “highest priority” on Unit 4

‘Rat-like animal’ blamed for Fukushima blackout — Rodent able to endanger nuclear plant?

Fukushima Diary: Professor of Fukushima university, “It’s a lie to assert nobody died for Fukushima accident”

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Police state news...

Some police (DHS) thrive, while others...

CNSNews: Police Departments Beg And Barter For Ammo While DHS Buys Up 1.6 Billion Rounds In Past Year

PrisonPlanet: Video - Hundreds Of DHS Armored Trucks On The Move?

Freedom Outpost: Army Captain Demands DHS Give Up Their Weapons Of War


Now that Aaron Swartz is gone...

OpenCogress: CISPA is Back; All Your Data Are Belong to Us (sic)

Reuters: U.S. to let spy agencies scour Americans' finances

Occasionally with all of these steps taken forward, there is a step or two taken back...

EFF: National Security Letters Are Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules

Techdirt: 9th Circuit Appeals Court - 4th Amendment Applies At The Border; Also: Password Protected Files Shouldn't Arouse Suspicion


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Miscellania...

Feds begin to grapple with crypto-currencies...

Cryptome: FinCen Regulation of BitCoin and Virtual Currency


Food wars...

GMOInside: ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ - 5 Terrifying Things To Know About The HR 933 Provision

FarmWars: New GMO Gene Silencing Technology – Backdoor Terminator?

Activist Post: Human Tissue Found in Meats - but eating it is "no threat"



Sandy Hook updates - where there's fire there is also a good deal of disinfo smoke...

MemoryHole: “Preliminary Investigative Report - Actors Involved with the Sandy Hook Massacre”

Journal of the Bizarre: Adam Lanza May Not Have Existed

Aangirfan: SANDY HOOK AND THE CIA

Ilsa: She-Wolf of the CIA

"For reasons of national security," we can't know her name - so let's call her Ilsa the She-Wolf - she works at the CIA and is looking to get a promotion as chief of clandestine services at the agency. She was in the chain of command of the indefinite detention and "enhanced interrogation" programs in the immediate aftermath of 9/11; and in 2005, as chief of staff to then head of clandestine services Jose Rodriguez, she signed off on the destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes recorded in Thailand - a purging of files akin to the purging that took place in 1973 of  MKULTRA files by the head of the program Sidney Gottlieb under orders of then DCI Richard Helms, files which possibly included audio tapes and films recorded by George Hunter White at CIA safe houses at 81 Bedford St. in Greenwich Village, NYC and 225 Chestnut St. in Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, as part of Operation Midnight Climax. (However, Gottlieb's administrative assistant who burned the files makes no mention of destroying tapes or films in her recollection as reported in A Terrible Mistake, by Hank Albarelli, Pg. 452. The audio and films of these "experiments" may still be out there somewhere).

Oddly enough, the actions taken against the detainees in the Thailand videos very likely demonstrated techniques or the use of substances and devices that were developed in the MKULTRA program and programs that followed it. Since MKULTRA continued certain types of experiments conducted by nazi scientists that were imported to the CIA through Project Paperclip, there is a contiguous line of "inquiry" that extends from the fictionalized Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS to our real but pseudonymous Isla: She-Wolf of the CIA.

"Ilsa" is presently the acting chief of the division pending the decision of newly installed DCI John Brennan who has decided to form a committee to make the decision to promote "Ilsa" for him.

Washington Post: CIA director faces a quandary over clandestine service appointment

There is much speculation as to the identity of the woman, but so long as it remains inconclusive, we shall continue to call her "Ilsa"...

Cryptome: Alfreda Frances Bikowsky Head of CIA Darkside?

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Update - May 7th

Ilsa didn't get the job...

WaPo: CIA selects new head of clandestine service, passing over female officer

Headlines of note for February 2013 (and early March)

Is Panetta throwing his old boss under the bus?

Weekly Standard: Panetta - Obama Absent Night of Benghazi

Defense.gov: Panetta Warns Sequestration Threatens National Readiness

The secretary compared sequestration to a scene from the movie “Blazing Saddles.”
“For those of you that have ever seen ‘Blazing Saddles,’ it is the scene of the sheriff putting the gun to his head in order to try to establish law and order,” he said.

Think about the metaphor, given other recent headlines... What exactly is Panetta suggesting?...

New American: Should Pres. Obama be Detained for Violating the NDAA?

The Blaze: ANTI-TERROR AUTHORITIES QUESTION WHERE MONEY GOES FROM GROUP WITH SPECIAL LICENSE FROM OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

LaRouchePAC: The Obama-Al Qaeda-MEK Connection

WND: RAND PAUL - OBAMA IN GUNS-TO-JIHADISTS COVER-UP?

Democracy Now: Kill List Exposed - Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit"

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A clear example of civil war provocateur PSYOPS...

Infowars: Company Behind Shooting Targets of Children Received $2 Million From DHS

Whereas this is designed to intimidate...

DailyMail: Death from a swarm of tiny drones - U.S. Air Force releases terrifying video of tiny flybots that can can hover, stalk and even kill targets

c-net: DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones

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International news...

Albawaba: Syrian spillover? Salafis rumored to be expanding 'holy war' into neighboring states

Why is this a question-mark headline?...

Guardian: Is the US maintaining death squads and torture militias in Afghanistan?

Strategic-Culture (Wayne Madsen): Obama’s Military Presence in Niger: Uranium Control and Tuareg Suppression

LiveLeak: Air Support missions, Afghanistan

Cryptome: Drone Nations

Mandiant: APT1 - Exposing One of China's Cyber Espionage Units

Rense (Yoichi Shimatzu): Soros Created ‘Abenomics’ To Suicide Japan’s Economy

Asahi: LEFT IN THE DARK - Secret U.S. military flights carried officials, equipment to N. Korea

Korean News: Pyongyang Citizens Delighted at News of Nuclear Test

Crytogon: Hundreds Injured After Meteorite Crashes in Russia

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A fascinating history of Operation Gladio, with a focus on the Turkish side of the covert terror ops program, courtesy of Sibel Edmonds interviewed by James Corbett at Boiling Frogs Post...

Video Report: Sibel Edmonds on Operation Gladio-Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Operation Gladio-Q and A

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Disinfo watch: a follow-up on that Britam email scare of last month (alleged false-flag plot)...

chartophylakeion tou polemou: Britam-Fakes


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Miscellania

ZeroHedge: Is This Where The Secret JP Morgan London Gold Vault Is Located?

Alexa O'Brien: Pfc. Bradley E. Manning's Statement for the Providence Inquiry

FireDogLake: Aaron Swartz’s FBI File

Chronicle of Higher Education: Aaron Swartz Was Right

CFS/SOS: Seed Giants vs. U.S. Farmers

Activist Post: USDA Received Pathogen Warning BEFORE Deregulating GM Alfalfa

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On a lighter note...

Shalom life: Kid's Purim Costume Idea - The Burning Twin Towers? [PHOTO]

Guardian: Nelson Mandela loves Toddlers and Tiaras show, say granddaughters

Ulsterman: Barack Obama’s “Mr. Creepy” Jim Messina…

Pedo-Pope Now Under House Arrest

We could not resist the attention-getting headline, even it is somewhat misleading. Ratzinger is not so much under house arrest as he is rather enjoying diplomatic immunity at the papal retreat in Rome, being severely restricted from future travel plans...

ITCCS: GUILTY!

Roman Church admits the Pope’s Guilt: Joseph Ratzinger to Evade Justice and Hide out in the Vatican for his own legal immunity and “protection”

The Enhanced Interrogation of John Brennan

[Editor's note - there are a couple of additions since the first posting: especially items relating to Sibel Edmonds and James Robbins]

Never mind this love-fest...

WaPo: John Brennan's confirmation hearing for CIA director

The enhanced interrogations of John Brennan being pursued by independent investigators are yielding astonishing reports. In our exclusive of June 2011 - Compromised by Birth - we put Brennan at the clandestine heart of the so-called "birther" controversy, either as one who scrubbed Obama's passport record (Jerome Corsi's allegation) or, as we argued, one who exploits that record as blackmail against Obama to keep him in line with the "natsec" (short for national security community) agenda, of which Brennan has been a low profile but central player. Just how central he has been to so many of the CIA misadventures and atrocities of recent times is finally coming to light, thanks in large part to veterans of "natsec" itself, who, upon Obama's appointment of Brennan to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), have come forth to report what they know about Brennan, all of it unflattering at best, and quite sinister at worst...

Consortiumnews: Brennan’s Loose Talk on Iran Nukes

“Fraudulent” is the inescapably appropriate adjective to describe the pre-Iraq-war intelligence conjured up by those (first and foremost George Tenet) who did the bidding of George Bush and Tony Blair. Former CIA colleagues who served under Brennan before and during the Iraq war tell us that, since he was such a close confidant of Tenet, Brennan almost certainly knew chapter and verse about the deliberate corruption of the intelligence on Iraq. And yet, we have no indication that you [Feinstein et al] have investigated whether Brennan was part of that fateful conspiracy...

Most vociferously in opposition to Brennan's nomination has been Michael Scheuer...

Foreign Policy Journal: John Brennan as CIA chief would serve his own interests, not America’s

Scheuer accuses Brennan of essentially protecting Osama Bin Laden in the 1990s when Brennan was, in the words of George Tenet, “CIA’s senior officer on the Arabian Peninsula.” Scheuer relates this anecdotal joke to convey the tight relationship between Tenet and Brennan:

Indeed, there was a popular joke inside CIA in the 1990’s which ran something like: “Question: Why is George Tenet never photographed from behind? Answer: Because they have not found a way to dislodge John Brennan’s nose.”

Corroborating this account is another CIA vet Larry Johnson...

NoQuarter: John Brennan Must Be Stopped

Then we have former CIA and Sate Department analyst Mel Goodman who, in disputing Brennan's claims that he was somehow out of the loop on renditions and torture, stated on...

Democracy Now: "He Was The Agency" - Ex-CIA Analyst Questions Brennan Claim He Couldn’t Stop Waterboarding, Torture

He was the agency. He was on the seventh floor of the agency. He was an executive assistant to the director [Tenet] and to the executive secretary [A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard] of the CIA.

Given his position, moving from “CIA’s senior officer on the Arabian Peninsula” to the CIA's top echelon at Langley with Tenet and Krongard, and considering a series of evidences, beginning with the close relationship between Tenet and then Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar, conveyed in such revelations as an "all-night shmooze" of the two on the evening of Sept. 8, 2001 (related in David Ottoway's The King's Messenger, Pg. 154), and of Tenet, drunk in Bandar's pool, screaming about Jews (related in in Patrick Tyler's A World of Trouble); then considering - by Senator Bob Graham's account - Bandar's financial support of at least two of the 9/11 hijackers through his BAE/Al Yamamah account in the Riggs Bank (later taken over by HSBC, the bank Obama's justice department has deemed "too big to jail"); then considering George Tenet's direct role - by Richard Clarke's accusation - in preventing the interception of the same hijackers that Bandar was funding; finally, as relates to Buzzy Krongard, when we consider - according to Max Keiser - Krongard's proximity to the United Airlines 9/11 put options through Alex Brown and Sons' Baltimore office; Tenet's and Krongard's deputy dog - John O. Brennan - becomes, to say the least, a "person of interest" in the 9/11/2001 stand-down.

Very tantalizingly, in a series of interviews concerning Operation Gladio "Plan B," Sibel Edmonds reveals - based on her time of FBI wire-tap translating in 2001-02 - that there were meetings held from 1997 through 2001 in Azerbaijan that included Ayman al Zawahiri, Prince Bandar and unnamed U.S. officials. When questioned about those officials, she says that some of them hold both official and advisory positions in the current Obama administration, as well as positions on the boards of top defense companies. Brennan, as counter-terrorism "czar" or as CIA director, would fit that description. Edmonds's comments come at 5:25 in the video at...

Corbett Report: Sibel Edmonds Answers Your Questions on Gladio B

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On Brennan's place in the British-Saudi axis...

LaRouchePAC: Brennan and Obama, British-Saudi Assets?

What LaRouchePAC misses however is Brennan's connection to British intelligence via Damien Perl's Global Strategies Group that we uncovered in Compromised by Birth II.

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There is also the matter of 9/11/2012 stand-down in Benghazi, leading to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, in which Brennan plays an even more central role. Such is the charge levied against Brennan in a recent E-book, Benghazi: The Definitive Report, by Jack Murphy and Brandon Webb. By this account, Stevens is said to have been at odds with the policies pursued by Brennan and Obama, including the overthrow of Qadaffi to begin with, and the spiriting of weapons from Libya into Syria, operations which Stevens was likely to obstruct; hence he as well as then DCI David Petraeus were kept out of the loop of  Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Maghreb run by Brennan himself. One of those military operations (mind you, long after the NATO mission had officially ceased) targeted a high level Al Qaeda operative in retaliation for which the Benghazi attack is said to have occurred. Since the State Department and CIA were unaware of the JSOC operations, they were hence unprepared for the likelihood of retaliation by the Al Qaeda affiliated Ansar al Sharia.

It is noteworthy that, as Murphy and Webb write, while "Stevens likely helped consolidate as many weapons as possible after the war to safeguard them..." his better judgement against their proliferation was overruled as "Brennan exported them overseas to start another conflict." This then is very much a gun-running (and not just gun-running, but very likely shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile-running) operation like that of Fast and Furious. So it should come as no surprise, though it was news to us, that as LaRouchePAC reports:

John Brennan Linked Through Kevin O'Reilly to Operation Fast and Furious

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Finally, on a less than serious note, courtesy of Glenn Beck's site...

The Blaze: EX-FBI AGENT CLAIMS OBAMA’S CIA NOMINEE IS REALLY A SECRET MUSLIM RECRUITED BY SAUDIS

But who knows? It is evident that Brennan was a bit miffed at challenges to his interpretation of the Islamic concept of jihad during a meeting with the editorial staff of The Washington Times...

WH counter-terrorism adviser Brennan storms out of TWT offices

James Robbins later revealed on facebook that he had received threats from the White House, from somebody apparently acting on behalf of Brennan. Robbins does not reveal the nature of the threats (likely they were in reference to his career opportunities) and he doesn't seem to take them very seriously; perhaps however given Brennan's attitude towards press freedom as argued in a college thesis, he should...

WhoWhatWhy: John Brennan In Grad School - Destroying Democracy Helps Save It

FEMEN campaign for Berlusconi

Berlusconi's flagging campaing for re-election receives a big boo...st in its final hours...

Voice of Russia: Femen girls in nude Berlusconi greeting (VIDEO)

The three women pulled off their clothes, remaining only in jeans, as soon as the former prime minister appeared at the polling station.
They shouted "Basta Berlusconi" ("Enough with Berlusconi"), the same slogan was painted on their bare upper bodies.
The activists broke through a line of journalists at the polling station at the Dante Alighieri School and tried to reach Berlusconi, but they were immediately seized by bodyguards and dragged away.
The three women, Inna Shevchenko, Oksana Shachko and Elvire Duval-Sharle, were quickly detained by police. The women resisted as officers struggled to put jackets and handcuffs on them and seat them in a police car.
The 76-year-old politician’s reaction to the incident was calm...


Indeed, because he knows that more bare breasted femmes means more votes for Berlusconi, and more votes for Berlusconi means more bare breasted femmes... The average Italian male understands this, but do these alleged feminists comprehend the dynamic here? It might just be enough to put Berlusconi over the top.

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More femme-provocateur news....

Leftwing Christian: BOOBS, PUSSIES, AND THE HYPOCRISY OF FRANCE

RT: Boob job - FEMEN activist reveals topless protesters’ $1,000 salaries

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Update

The campaign effort didn't work out for Berlusconi, who lost by a narrow margin, thanks in large part to the campaign of the self-described clown Grillo. For the ins and outs of Italian politics, see Webster Tarpley...

After Fifteen Months of Monti’s Austerity Rule, Italy Votes; Right-Wing Demagogue Grillo Rides Wave of Chaos

Briefing Di Tarpley Per Le Elezioni

Assassin in Chief

It came from the most unlikely of sources (in so far as NBC and MSNBC have been to Obama what FOX was to Bush)...

NBC (Michael Isikoff): Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans

The raw report (courtesy Secrecy News)...

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE WHITE PAPER 

Draft November 8, 2011 

Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who 

Is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa'ida or An Associated Force 

While much of what it tells us is nothing new, certain details are brought to light demonstrating that the program is potentially far more insidious than one might have thought. For instance, as concerns the notion of "immanent threat," Glenn Greenwald notes in...

Gaurdian: Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens

The memo claims that the president's assassination power applies to a senior al-Qaida member who "poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States". That is designed to convince citizens to accept this power by leading them to believe it's similar to common and familiar domestic uses of lethal force on US soil: if, for instance, an armed criminal is in the process of robbing a bank or is about to shoot hostages, then the "imminence" of the threat he poses justifies the use of lethal force against him by the police.

But this rhetorical tactic is totally misleading. The memo is authorizing assassinations against citizens in circumstances far beyond this understanding of "imminence". Indeed, the memo expressly states that it is inventing "a broader concept of imminence" than is typically used in domestic law. Specifically, the president's assassination power "does not require that the US have clear evidence that a specific attack . . . will take place in the immediate future"...

One might have inferred the policy as such, however, synthesizing previously known administration efforts on a. pursuing "preventative detention" legislation, whereby the assumed but evidentially undiscovered proclivity to terrorism is enough to warrant detention; b. using loose criteria - "all military-aged males in a strike zone" - for identifying terrorists as adequate not just for capture but for killing; and c. the already executed policy (known to have occurred deliberately in one case and collaterally in two, including that of a minor) of drone assassination of U.S. citizens outside of judicial or congressional oversight.

It should come as no surprise then that Obama is indeed assuming dictatorial powers in the very arbitrary sense that the word "dictator" implies; and we can only bemusedly smile at the bewildered dismay of his otherwise supportive hopium tokers succumbing to the cognitive dissonance that these facts induce. Now having broken through the partisan blood-brain barrier and shafting into the very heart of the Obama-zombie echo-chamber - MSNBC - we shall see how the old adage, "Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite," pans out for 21st Century America.

Discouragingly, there is a tendency to fish for apologies, excuses, and allowances that really it's not as bad as it looks. Even Scott Shane, co-author of many of the New York Times pieces on these matters, including most recently: Drone Strikes’ Risks to Get Rare Moment in the Public Eye; Mr. Shane was recently heard on NPR confabulating...

I don't think it's that [President Obama is] bloodthirsty and really enjoys trying to put people's names on lists to be killed. I think there's a certain wariness — probably a proper wariness — that any president would have towards agencies. Agencies kind of want to do what they're good at doing, or what they're job is.

So certainly, according to what we've heard, both the CIA and ... the element of the military that does these strikes are pretty aggressive. They want to find targets and kill them, and so I think the role of the White House — the role that President Obama assigned to the White House — was, and to himself, was really one of restraining the agencies...

Indeed, restraining these agencies from people like Stanley McCrystal...

Reuters: Retired general cautions against overuse of "hated" drones

Shane drones on...

...double-checking the agencies, making sure that at this sort of broader strategic, political level, that there was good judgment being exercised, that you weren't taking a shot in a very marginal situation or for a marginal gain and risking a big backlash that would put the United States in a worse position.

It is extraordinary that this is the same guy who previously described for us Brennan and Obama deciding whether or not to kill a 17 year old girl...

This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years...

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We have been brought to assume the worst about this president. Enough so that we should question whether the assassination policy has any constraints at all, and whether the methods include the CIA's more traditional "black bag" modus operandi, even with the president himself participating in the PSYOPS. A case in point, on the morning of Feb. 2, the White House issued a dubious photo of Obama demonstrating his purported marksman skills...

This Ain't Hell: Saturday steaming bowl of Skeet

Curious timing, as later that day, top rated Navy SEAL sniper, Chris Kyle, was gunned down in Texas...

Infowars: Murdered Navy SEAL Was Obama Gun Control Foe

Eliminating dissent? Or was Kyle executed in order to cover up an attempted character assassination?

Examiner: SEAL sniper being sued by Jesse Ventura found murdered

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Another likely assassination, though in this case the "persons of interest" would be associates of the Bushes (which could include Obama), as the target was one Phillip Marshall, a former CIA/DEA pilot and author of books on 9/11 and Iran-Contra (in which he was an unwitting participant as a flyer out of Mena, Arkansas with notorious CIA drug-runner Barry Seal who, incidentally, was assassinated on this day in 1986, and is regularly cited as a denizen of the Bush and/or Clinton body count). In the case of Marshal, the "black bag" operation was particularly vicious, as he was "suicided" after allegedly murdering his teenage son and daughter and dog...

Santa Barbara Review: Phillip Marshall Wrote About a Conspiracy; Was He the Victim of One?

Wayne Madsen seeks to connect this to the murder mystery of Sarai Sierra in Istanbul the same weekend, as Marshall's ex-wife was also in Istanbul at the time of the murder. The connection is unclear, but his observation in conclusion is worth noting...

WMR: Is there a connection between alleged double murder-suicide in California and dead American woman in Turkey?

President Obama's policy on assassinating American citizens anywhere in the world has been authorized by what are called "elastic" Department of Justice criteria. Four Americans are now dead with Turkey being a common factor. Because of his policies, Mr. Obama now owes the nation a full explanation of "what he knew and when he knew it" every time an American dies from suspicious causes at home or abroad. The Marshall-Sierra deaths call for an immediate "what they knew and when they knew it" explanation from Mr. Obama and the architect of America's torture, kidnapping, and assassination policies, John O. Brennan, nominated by Obama to head the CIA.

Madsen, following up on the Murphy, California side of the story, concludes that Phil Marshall had something that someone was willing to kill to obtain, noting that Marshall was currently working on a new book, telling a friend that "You're not going to believe the stuff I'm going to have in the next book."

Madsen, who was on site Feb. 13, notes that a stack of empty bankers boxes were found at the front door. Subsequently the premises was broken into and then visited by Marshall's estranged inlaws, who were said to have made "quite a mess." It is unclear whether the inlaws or the Sheriff currently possesses Marshall's computer. In either case, the fate of his unfinished, final book is not looking good.

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In other deaths with opportunistic timing, Paraguay's populist president has been "aviated" into the netherworld...

Economist: The last caudillo - Lino Oviedo’s death may help the Colorados return to power

Will the Bush family finally cash in on that investment made some years ago...?

FourWinds10.com: BEAUTIFUL PARAGUAY - THE BUSH'S LIKE IT - WONDER WHY?